One of my favourite places to go for one of my regular walks is Fletcher Moss Botanical Gardens in Didsbury, not least because I can pop into the cafe for a pot of tea and a big wedge of cake while I’m out. This week whilst I was walking through the park I spied this, the Didsbury Bug Hotel. 

The sign reads…

Find twigs, pine cones, leaves or bark around the park and add it to our bug hotel to look after all our mini beasts!

I thought this was a fantastic idea to encourage kids and families to do a little bit for nature and to learn more about the insects we have in the UK. 

Apparently the average garden is home to over 2,000 different species of insects, some of these bugs are essential for helping to control the pests which eat our flowers, fruit and vegetables, some like bumblebees pollinate our plants who are in decline, so by building the Didsbury Bug Hotel we can contribute to their conservation.

I was incredibly excited to see the hotel pop up and I couldn’t wait to take the small boy out to see it at the weekend. Sadly by the time weekend had come around and we’d got to the park, the Didsbury Bug Hotel was gone. Vandals (for want of a better word) had burnt it down and I felt incredibly angry about that.

At home in our own garden I’m trying to create a space which encourages wildlife to thrive. Planting flowers which bees and butterflies love and we’ve got some bird feeders up for the local bird life. I think we’ll have to create out own little Didsbury Bug Hotel, it might not be as big as the one in Fletcher Moss, but it’s a small thing that we can do together to help our local insect population.